


That Solo's Awful Long

by cridecoeur



Series: We Are Ghosts [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-03
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 20:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cridecoeur/pseuds/cridecoeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re rickrolling the town,” John says because someone needs to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> True beginning of small town shenanigans! Also for anyone who has not seen it, I give you [Rick Astley himself rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL-hNMJvcyI). You're welcome.

Apparently, no one goes to the river by bike.

“We could and all,” Harry says, watching Sherlock fold himself into their Mum’s Corsa. “But this way’s more fun. Gives Sherlock good practice, too.”

“Couldn’t we just ask for the keys?” John says, watching Sherlock fiddle with bits of wire. “I mean, it’d be easier than hot-wiring the thing.” Sherlock lifts his head up, and he and Harry exchange a look over John’s head that he can’t interpret, but that seems significant. It involves them doing a lot of obscure things with their eyebrows.

“You could,” Harry admits. “But, believe me, you don’t want to.”

“What, hot-wiring it’s better?” John says. He’s not necessarily objecting, but that seems like faulty logic. Sherlock makes a victorious noise from where he’s folded down in the seat, and the car roars suddenly to life. Harry whoops, then says. “She doesn’t mind us taking it. She just doesn’t like being _bothered_. So, better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that rot.”

“Still,” John says. “Could have just swiped the keys.”

Harry smiles brightly. “Told you, this way’s more fun.” She slaps one hand on the car’s roof. “Now, come on, get in. And put your seatbelt on. Sherlock drives like the devil.”

Sherlock does, in fact, drive like the devil. The roads are bad as it is, poorly tended, but Sherlock, apparently, loves things _fast_ and with an edge of danger. He takes the first sharp turn at nearly 50, just about putting the car up on two wheels. Harry whoops in the passenger’s seat, and John finds himself more excited than is decent. Since his father died, things seemed _slow_ and _dull_ , and now - the way Sherlock’s driving, he could just as easily lose control of the car as keep it, and that’s suddenly fantastic.

“Come on, then,” John says, feeling a sort of manic happiness. “Open her up!”

Sherlock looks back at him and gives him a lunatic sort of smile, more wide-open than anything John has seen from him yet. He guns the engine as they hit an open stretch, road straight out in front of them, and then they’re _flying_. The speedometer hits 95, and something in John sings. The fields they blow by are a blur, streaks of green and brown in John’s peripheral vision. Harry pounds on the passenger’s door, and shouts, “Come on, Sherlock!” egging him on, and the speedometer clocks over 120.

When they reach the river they come to a screeching halt, and Sherlock spins the car around twice - just for the hell of it, as far as John can tell - to pull into an open patch of dirt, free from the fenced-in fields, that certainly isn’t a parking lot but isn’t really anything else, either. The three of them are panting, not from exertion, but from the pure thrill of being on the very edge of control.

Harry slaps her hand against the roof of the car, suddenly, and whoops. “That gets better every bloody time.”

“That was brilliant,” John says - he’s already looking forward to the ride back into town. Harry flashes him a wide smile. Sherlock still has that lunatic grin on his face.

“Come on,” Harry says and kicks her door open. “Wait’ll you see what Sherlock’s working on.” She hops out and pops the seat down, and John clambers out after her. The day is still muggy, and John can feel sweat prickling at the back of his neck - Sherlock wasn’t wrong about his jacket.

Sherlock stalks across the field, towards a long line of trees, which hide the edge of the river, apparently. John follows him and Harry, as they walk along the curve of the water, hugging the bank closely, until they reach a sharp turn where the trees grow further back from the water.

Some sort of scrap metal structure, dripping with wiring, rises out of the earth, looking a bit like Frankenstein’s monster in structural form. Sherlock circles it once, then pulls an assortment of - John doesn’t know exactly what, scrap metal and bits of circuitry and things of the like, out of his backpack. Harry squats down beside it, hands braced on her knees dress skirt falling precariously over her legs.

“What is it?” John says.

Harry grins. “Sherlock’s trying to build a radio tower,” she says.

“I’m not trying,” Sherlock says, working away at something John can’t see the purpose of. “I am _succeeding_.”

John squats down beside him, too. “What for?” he says.

“So we can take over the airwaves,” Harry says. “ _Obviously_.” Sherlock is smirking down at the - whatever it is he’s doing.

“Harry’s idea,” he says. “Occasionally she will have a good one.”

“Aww, thanks,” Harry says. She stands up suddenly. “Come on. We can fish while he works.” John wrinkles up his nose, and Harry catches him at it and laughs. “Oh, don’t worry. The way we fish is _fun_.”

#

Apparently what Harry means by fun is that they fish by throwing dynamite in the river.

“It’s not exactly dynamite,” she says, pushing a log out of the way and retrieving a canvas sack from a hollow beneath it. “Pretty close, though, I guess.” She fishes what looks very much like dynamite out of the sack, followed by a fancy looking lighter. She flicks it, once, and says, “Good, then, still works,” when it lights.

“You want first go?” Harry says, and John looks from the sack of definitely illegal explosives, back to the sluggishly rolling river.

“Absolutely,” he says.

#

Harry cheers when the underwater blast throws water up like a fountain, in every direction. The ripples spread out wide and choppy, more like actual waves than ripples.

“Come on,” she says, “In we go. Most of them sink to the bottom,” stepping out of her sandals and hiking her skirt up to wade into the water, “Hurry up or the river’ll take them.”

John kicks off his trainers, balls up his socks and sticks them inside, and wades into the river after Harry. The water’s surprisingly cold, and the hair on his legs stands up immediately. Something slimy brushes against his leg, and he nearly yelps, until he sees Harry stick a hand under the water and come up with a fish and realizes what it is. He bends over and grasps it and comes out with a cod, several inches long.

“Good one,” Harry says and throws her own up on the bank. John follows her lead. Soon the bank’s littered with fish, silver and pink-bodied, and John and Harry are wading out of the water just as Sherlock says, “Ah-ha!” and the structure - the undersized radio tower - he’s working on starts to hum. He flashes them a sharp-edged smile and says, “Done.”

“Brilliant,” Harry says, rubbing her hands together. “Come on, then, let’s do it.”

Sherlock makes an affirmative noise, and begins fiddling with what looks like a simple CD player and microphone headset. He slips the headset on a flips a few switches. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he says. “This is Sherlock Holmes broadcasting to you from a location I’m afraid I can’t reveal to you or you would undoubtedly send Lestrade to stop us. While I’m sure you were enjoying your broadcast of poorly executed, badly sung music, we’ve decided we’re tired of listening to the same 10 songs on repeat. So we decided to put on a poorly executed, badly sung song of our own, for you.” He smiles. “Do enjoy it,” then he hits play on the CD player.

John catches faint strains of music through the headset, hard to identify at first. He definitely recognizes the “NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN,” that leaks through, though. Harry and Sherlock are both smiling, looking exceptionally pleased with themselves.

“You’re rickrolling the town,” John says because someone needs to.

“Yep,” Harry says. She sets her hands on her hips, and watches as Sherlock starts tearing at bits and pieces and does something obscure to the CD player. “£10 says Lestrade has to call in Mycroft to take it apart.”

“I don’t take bets I have no chances of winning,” Sherlock says, finishing what he’s doing, then stands up, brushing off his hands. “That should do it.” He turns towards them. “Now I believe it’s time to observe the results.”

“Because no experiment is valid unless the results are observed,” Harry says, like she’s parroting something back at him. “Shame we couldn’t see their reactions right away.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock says. “I will easily be able to hack into Mycroft’s camera feeds.”

“Wait,” John says. “ _What_ camera feeds.”


	2. But It's a Good Refrain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, shit,” Harry says suddenly, “ _Porn_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, I'm ba-ack. After I wrote my _god damn novel_ , I decided I was pretty much allergic to the words "original fic" and "novel length" and didn't even want to think those words for at least the next month. So ya'll have got my attention for a while. And the first thing I decided to do was ... update probably my least popular story. I make excellent decisions, obviously. But this one's the one I'm feeling right now and the easiest to ease back in on. I've got a couple _Lumos_ pieces in the works, so if you're not thrilled with this being the thing I'm updating, I guess you can look forward to that. Maybe. If that's even something you like better.

As it turns out, Mycroft is town mayor. “Wasn’t difficult to win, though,” Harry puts in. “He was running against a sheep. And the sheep was just for a lark.” He also has some sort of hard-on for surveillance. 

“We think it’s some sort of big brother complex,” Harry says. “Really no reason for him to do it, except to keep an eye on Sherlock. Not like anyone does anything worth watching.” She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Guess he could just be bored, though.”

“And a damnable control-freak,” Sherlock mutters, as they wind their way back along the river, towards the car. 

“Right, there’s that, too,” Harry says. 

Sherlock dumps his backpack with it’s left over technological odds and ends into the Corsa’s boot, then slams the door closed. “We really should do something about them,” Sherlock says, musingly. 

John scrambles into the backseat and Sherlock slides behind the wheel again, fiddling with wiring until the car roars to life, once more. Harry hops into the passenger’s seat and closes the door behind her.

“Yeah, but what?” she says; she sounds thoughtful, too, though.

“Loop something on the feed?” John says. Not exactly a genius idea, but he’s not the genius of the group.

“Ridiculously simple,” Sherlock says. “Although not without potential, if the video being fed in were the right one.”

“Oh, shit,” Harry says suddenly, “ _Porn_ ,” and John and Sherlock both whip around to face her. “That’s what we should feed in,” she clarifies. “ _Really terrible_ porn.”

Sherlock reflects on this for a moment. “Imagine the blow to his English sensibilities,” he says, which sounds to John like an _absolutely_. 

He shifts the car into drive. “First, we’ll have to finish with Lestrade. I imagine he’s gathering some choice words for us, even now.” Then he screeches out of the parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust in the Corsa’s wake, and tearing down the road, towards town.

The ride’s no less enjoyable, the second time around.

#

Lestrade’s waiting for them at John and Harry’s house - although John doesn’t feel like he can claim much ownership over it, he hasn’t even been in town a full day. He’s sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade in one hand and a long-suffering look on his face. “Don’t suppose you’re going to willingly undo this one,” he says, sounding like he already knows the answer.

“It’s almost as if you don’t know me at all,” Sherlock says.

Lestrade sighs. “Yeah, thought not,” he says. He pushes himself up off the porch. “Am I going to be able to undo this myself?”

“I believe the probability is fast approaching zero,” Sherlock says.

“What a surprise,” Lestrade says. “Your Mum wants to talk to you, Harry. John.” He adds, as if remembering John’s there to be trouble, now. Harry grimaces, looking towards the front door of the house. “She should be fine,” Lestrade says. “Just don’t upset her.” Whatever that means. “Come on, Sherlock. I’ll give you a ride back into town.”

Sherlock makes a vaguely affirmative noise, but trades another weighty look with Harry—John’s really going to have to figure out what those looks mean. Maybe it’ll come with time.

“Come on, John,” Harry says, “Best get it over with,” clomping up the stairs and holding the door open for him. She sets a hand on his arm when he passes her, though, and says. “Just … don’t say a whole lot, alright?” John blinks at, not sure why he shouldn’t, but nods, anyways. She flashes him a brief smile, then lets him go, stepping inside after him and closing the door behind her, more quietly this time.

There’s water running in the kitchen and the soft sound of a radio playing—the same song still looping. Harry sets a hand on John’s arm, again, and pulls him gently towards the kitchen. In a moment, he can see his mother standing in front of the sink, washing plates and humming. Harry stands their quietly for a moment, with John at her elbow, before she says, in a soft voice, “Hello, mum.”

Their mother sets the plate she’s walking into the soapy sink. She turns the water of and then the radio and turns around. When she sees the two of them standing their, she offers them a vague, distant smile. Her eyes seem somewhat hazy, like the dust kicked up from the town that obscures the sun.

“Hello, Harriet,” she says. “John.” 

“Mum,” Harry says, again. She’s tense at John’s elbow but hiding it well enough.

“I’m going to make dinner at 6,” their mother says. “Is there anything you’d like?”

Harry blows out a breath. “Anything’s fine,” she says and then seems to reconsider for a moment. “Except no bloody sheep.”

“Alright,” their mother says. She offers another of those vague smiles and then turns back around, clicking the radio back on and twisting the faucet again, picking up the dish she’d been washing and rinsing it off. Harry blows out another breath and all the tension leaves her at once. Quietly, she pulls John back out of the room.

When they reach their shared bedroom, Harry collapses on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“She wasn’t upset, at all,” John says. That seems strange to him.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Looks like she’s having a good day. Must be because you’re here.”

Before John can ask what her bad days look like, Harry pushes herself up from the bed. “Come on, let’s go,” she says and then strangely, opens the window.

“Go where?” John says. 

“Not here,” Harry says and John realizes she means to go out the window at the same time as she kicks a leg over the sill. “We’ll go find Sherlock. Mycroft’s probably done with him, by now. Or trying to fix the radio, which amounts to the same thing.”

She gets her other leg over the sill and drops out of the window and onto the grass outside.

“Come on, John,” she says. John glances back over his shoulder, listening to the sounds in the kitchen.

“Won’t she be upset?” he says.

“She’ll have more chance to if we’re still here,” Harry says. “Let’s go.” She gestures towards the streets. 

John glances back towards the kitchen, again, because this is all very strange. “Alright,” he says, finally, because he doesn’t much want to stay in the house without Harry, alone with his mum, who he doesn’t know, even a little. He kicks his legs over the windowsill, dropping down beside Harry.

“Right, come on,” Harry says and walks around the house to pick up her bike. John follows her lead. “We can get out to the manor quick enough this way. Not to mention, Sherlock’s the only one who knows how to get the car working.”

“Sure,” John says because he certainly can’t hot wire the thing. Maybe he’ll ask Sherlock to show him. Harry kicks her leg over her bike and John mirrors her, as she kicks off and starts pedaling down the street.

“Follow me!” she says. “And try to keep up!”


End file.
